Broken HDD

[Elev8r]

While I was plugging in one of my HDD's, I accidentally broke the SATA connector on the HDD. The small piece of plastic behind the gold fingers of the port has broken off, and now it doesn't work. It's a WD 320GB Caviar SE.

How would I go about getting it fixed? The data on there is not extremely valuable, but I would like to recover it if possible.

 

[antowan]

You are going to have to get creative here. Any pics?

 

[Elev8r]

Here: http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php?photo=10897&cat=500

 

[Game_Boyz]

you need........

Deft fingers, small soldiering iron tip - did it last month on my own hdd; basically have a test rig, which we shunt around without the hdd being bolted down as it is changed often. Assistant moved case and dropped hdd until it hung by sata cable, same damage. Took a piece (2mm) strand of wire of an existing ide cable and soldiered directly onto sata cable & hdd. Worked, retrieved data!

 

[ponder]

Solder & fine wire.

You could also try building up the missing plastic with some epoxy resin.

Other alternative is to take it to a electronics place that have the tools so you can replace the entire connector assembly.